At the Concert for George in November 2002, Shankar incorporated some of the selections from Chants of India, including the album-closing "Sarve Shaam", in a set performed by daughter Anoushka as a tribute to Harrison.
[8] When compiling In Celebration, Shankar and Harrison discussed with Angel Records the possibility of making an album of Vedic chants and other Hindu sacred texts set to music.
[10][nb 1] As far as the words are concerned, they are open now [after 40 years], but the tune I had to give, or add a slight orchestration in the background, was with this very thought that it should match this old sentimental, old spiritual context that it has.
[28] Anoushka Shankar conducted the musicians at the sessions,[24] having made her European performance debut in July 1995 at an official concert to celebrate her father's 75th birthday, held at the Barbican Centre in London.
[10] According to Tillery, Madras had been chosen in order to "cultivate authenticity", being a music capital of the South Asian region, yet the atmosphere at Sruthilaya "seemed too secular for the aura of spirituality they wanted to create".
[30][nb 2] A large cast of local musicians contributed to the recording in Madras, on instruments such as veena, violin, flute, cello, tanpura and mridangam, while the chorus singers (divided into "Indian" and "Western" groups on the sleeve credits) numbered 21.
"[9] Among the participating musicians at Friar Park were Shankar's occasional tabla player Bikram Ghosh,[1] along with Tarun Bhatacharaya (santoor), Ronu Mazumdar (bansuri flute) and Jane Lister (harp).
[27] Tillery describes the making of Chants of India as a "labor of love" for Harrison following his participation in the Beatles' Anthology project,[26] and Barham similarly recalls it as having been "a pleasure working on this beautiful record".
[1] Harrison then accepted an acoustic guitar from host John Fugelsang[54] and performed songs including the just-released "Prabhujee", sung with Ravi and Sukanya Shankar.
[64] On release, Josef Woodard of Entertainment Weekly labelled the album "enchanting" and added: "Unlike Shankar's classical raga recordings, Chants of India is a set of short, colorfully arranged pieces, enjoyable for neophytes and devotees alike.
[65] In his review for Billboard, Paul Verna commented that "the project possesses a hypnotic quality reminiscent of the label's enormously popular Gregorian chant recordings" and concluded: "'Chants of India' represents a creative milestone in the life of a veteran artist whose contributions to traditional Indian music cannot be overestimated.
"[57] Author and former Mojo editor Mat Snow considers it to be "perhaps the very best introduction to the enduring creative friendship between the Bengali classical master and the scruff from Liverpool's back streets".
[66] Harrison biographer Alan Clayson describes Chants of India as a "thoroughly diverting production" that "[balances] sung lyrics as succinct as haiku and instrumental passages of a quirky complexity vaguely reminiscent of Frank Zappa".
[74][75] On 29 November 2002, a year after his death at the age of 58, Shankar included selections from Chants of India in the opening, Indian music portion of the Concert for George,[76] held at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
[79] The album-closing "Sarve Shaam" appears at the start of David Leland's Concert for George documentary film (2003),[79] played as Harrison's widow Olivia lights commemorative candles on stage.
[44][80] As part of Ravi Shankar's 90th birthday celebrations in 2010,[81] Dark Horse Records reissued Chants of India in a four-disc box set titled Collaborations.